How come human beings can talk?

The German economist Heiner Flassbeck highlights the fact that human beings are largely incapable of distinguishing between two senses of the same word: in particular, in his native German language, the word for debt is the same as the word for guilt. That means Germans tend to think that debtors are all guilty: totally illogical of course.

Much the same goes for the word “austerity” which has two quite separate meanings: first, inadequate demand, and second, inadequate public spending (even assuming demand is adequate). About 99% of English speakers who use the word fail to clarify in what sense they are using it. But that doesn’t really matter for them. After all, they’re not really interested in solving austerity related problems (in any sense of the word). Normally the motive for wielding the word is to do some so called “virtue signalling”.

In view of the above failure to understand or use words properly, it’s a wonder is that human beings can talk at all…:-)

Incidentally Heiner Flassbeck and yours truly published (quite separately) a possible solution for Greece and similar countries a year or two ago. That’s to let Greece impose import tariffs. See here.

However, there’s been little interest in that idea, and for reasons alluded to above, namely that Greece is a godsend for virtue signallers. In contrast, if you suggest an actual solution for the Greek problem which requires a concentration span of more than five seconds to get to grips with, then virtue signallers’ eyes glaze over.

And that’s the end of this thoroughly cynical article.